Loving Grandpa

Treat them beyond what you expect, then stand back and be amazed as they achieve more than what you both thought possible.

We did it! My birthday present to Teo, for turning five, was a bit more than expected but soooo memorable! (Return trip drastically altered due to the return train hitting a truck up the line and indefinitely delayed; we took a bus to Sacramento, hopped another train home.)

Amtrak to Roseville

I sent my soon-to-be-five grandson a simple gift certificate with a big picture of the Amtrak train we would be taking to Roseville from Emeryville, CA. It’s the shortest round trip I could do and still experience a dining car. Teo got it in the mail, understood it, told his Mom he would go with me, then wadded up my creation and threw it in the trash. So much for a 5-year old’s sentimentality!  He had not even shown it to Brenton, my son, so I shared this incident with him. But the next day, I got this email from my son:

Actually, when I got home, he asked Terese to dig it back out and show it to me. He was really excited. But then after that, he grabbed hold of the paper with both hands, and with a gleeful “Wooop!” ripped it in two and ran and put the pieces in the recycling. Today, though, he was talking about his preparations for the trip.

Remarkable Scribbles

I probably missed lots of these simple moments with our three kids as a busy parent, but as a grandfather, I’m more aware of the wonder of a developing child. So I actually wrote this up and framed it as a present to my son … about his son.

The Story Behind this Remarkable Paper

(Sorry the “Paper” described in this story was framed along with this story and given to my son as explained, but I think you can imagine it.)

During an adventure for his 4^th birthday when we stayed overnight at a Travelodge motel in Santa Cruz, I asked Teo to think of four numbers for locking the motel room safe. He pondered for awhile, and then came up with a surprisingly good random number: 3514.

Without much thought I handed him the motel note pad and asked him to write down the number so we wouldn’t forget it. He looked at me apologetically and said “I can’t write.” Well, of course! I knew he recognized numbers but they don’t teach writing in pre-school! But thinking I’d challenge him a bit, I said, “Can you draw a 3?” He thought a moment and started generating a big 3 starting from the bottom up. It looked pretty good! I praised him and said, “Now we need a 5.” As you can see, he drew a fairly decent 5, again from the bottom up. I praised him again and asked for a 1. Surprisingly, he agonized over this one and finally came up with his 1, including the little head that slanted up instead of down. I could see he was not really happy about his 1 and looked at me sadly. I reassured him it was a good 1.

At this time, it suddenly registered on me that Teo had not been formally taught how to write numbers — so why not from the bottom up?!? I marveled at the process his brain, hand and eyes had to go through to generate these numbers on the paper, probably for the first time in his life! Also, no one had instructed him in positioning 3514 side-by-side, left to right. These are all things we take for granted as adults.

Somewhat in awe of what he had already done, and seeing how he had struggled with the 1, I hesitantly asked for the final 4. I then saw an amazing process! Teo closed his eyes, obviously trying to visualize 4 in his mind. He then put a tiny line on the paper. Then he closed his eyes again for a moment, his eyelids flickering in concentration, and then added another tiny line on the paper. After several such visits to his mind, followed by seemingly random little lines on the paper, an image emerged on the paper — and it looked like a 4! (If you inspect the character, you will see five little lines that make up the 4.)

It was then that I appreciated what this 4-year-old had done! Without knowing how numbers are normally written, he had transferred the images he knew and could see in his mind to drawings on paper. The hand-eye coordination, especially for the tiny 4 he drew, is just as remarkable as the process of generating the numbers from the images in his mind.

The results of this amazing process are now preserved here, in the original motel note paper. I was tempted to trace over it to make it darker and easier to see, but decided to leave it in its original form. Teo was focused on getting the fingers to move the pen correctly to trace out the image from the mind. Making the lines darker was not a priority.

When Teo finished the 4, I could see he did not need my congratulations to know he had done something significant. He was beaming with pride. He knew that paper had the secret number to the safe, where my laptop computer and his stuffed animals and toys were secured. It was an important number and he wanted it folded and securely pushed deep into his pocket!

Grandpa
October 25, 2007

Teo and Trains

At around two, Teo wanted me to play with his Thomas trains EVERY time I babysat. I kept trying to get him to play with other toys just to break the monotony for myself. But he kept wanting to go back to pushing his trains around the floor.

One day as I came into the room for another babysitting session, Teo looked up from his trains apprehensively. But I surprised him. I said: “Hi Teo — would you let me play Thomas trains with you?” His face lit up — he looked soooo happy — and he immediately assigned some trains to me. Suddenly I felt there was a new bond. A warm fuzzy feeling that came over me. I think Teo suddenly saw me as a special friend — after all, I ASKED to play trains with him! It seemed from that time on, he looked forward to my being there, even though he soon grew out of his total occupation with trains.

Four years ago, I discovered the joy of grandparent!  Not at all what I expected!  Totally amazing!  Bottom line:  I had time to marvel at our little grandson, and now our 1-yr old granddaughter — all those precious little things that we didn’t have time to fully enjoy when we were so busy raising our own kids.